October 2009

October 31, 2009

There is no greater punishment for a journalist than being assigned to cover a sideshow of a historic story. But sometimes those sidelights bring the main story into a much sharper focus. Reporting out of Bombay on the day of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination did not hold the promise of a devastating tragedy but it had its telling moments.

Within hours of the murder there was palpable fear that Sikhs in the city could become a target of collective anger. On November 1 when Delhi exploded into independent India's worst pogrom, the authorities in Bombay were pushed to the edge. I remember Bombay Police Commissioner Julio Ribeiro, with whom I was in regular touch because of my crime reporting assignment, saying soon after the killings of Sikhs began in Delhi, "Today Bombay is not very far from Delhi but we won't let anyone harm a single Sikh in this city."

Apart from Ribeiro, the safety and security of the Sikhs in Bombay depended a great deal on a newspaper cartoonist and political satirist turned politician Bal Thackeray, the cadres of whose Shiv Sena party had the means to unleash considerable violence against Sikhs that day. Ribeiro knew this and so did Thackeray. I am not sure if there was any specific communication between the two men on the subject but it is not altogether inconceivable.

There were strong suggestions by many from within the Sikh community that it had essentially "bought" peace. Several local Sikh leaders said they had "paid off" those who mattered to ensure that no harm was done to the community unlike in the capital where Gandhi's Congress Party had announced an open season on it.

Coming back to how a single incident illuminated the Gandhi killing for me personally, I took a taxi from Ribeiro's office to return to my newspaper sometime after 4 p.m. on November 1. The driver was a Sikh man who had heard about what was going on in Delhi. His details were inevitably sketchy and somewhat sensationalized. "Puri Dilli jal rahi hai sahab (The whole of Delhi is on fire). Sarey Sikh bhaag rahen hein (All Sikhs are fleeing)," he told me. Since I had emerged from the police commissioner's office he had presumed that I had to be either a journalist or a policeman. In his judgment I could not have been a policeman because I seemed too young for that and still afford a taxi. So he concluded I was from the press.

"Yes, there has been some violence but it is not as if the whole city is engulfed," I said, trying to bring in some objectivity.

He then showed me a deep cut on his right arm and said, "Yeh dekho, aaj subah jab ghar se chala taxi leke to kisi ne bottle se kata (Look at this. This morning when I left someone cut me with a bottle.)"

I could see that my objectivity was no longer useful because the violence in Delhi had become personal for the driver. He told me that he had chased the assailant who had managed to escape through the narrow lanes of his slum.

The driver, Teja Singh then said something that I remember vividly 25 years later. He said he could not care less about the politics behind Gandhi's assassination even though in some ways even identified with his community's anger against her. He said he was ashamed by the act of her two Sikh bodyguards because they had attacked and killed an unarmed and unprepared adversary. That she was a woman made it particularly tragic for him. I may be paraphrasing here but he said something like this: "Nihatthe, auraton or bachchon pe hum war nahi karte. (We do not kill the unarmed, women and children)."

I found it instructive that Teja Singh was not troubled as much by the actual killing and the motivation behind it as the way it was done and to whom.

As I reached my destination and took out the fare, Teja Singh stopped me saying, "Bahut khoon baha hai. Aaj paisa nahin. (Too much blood has been shed. No money today)." He drove off.

October 30, 2009

Since there was no tradition of granting news interviews to a
23-year-old journalist in those days I never got to meet Indira Gandhi
personally. Youth automatically disqualified anyone from claiming a seat at the
power table in the India of those days.

However, by the time she was assassinated on October 31,
1984 she was so deeply embedded into the country’s collective psyche that it
always seemed one knew her rather well. Mind you, this was before our lives were
taken over by 50,000 frenzied news channels with breathless TV anchors locked
in manufactured antagonisms with politicians 24/7.

In many ways Indira Gandhi was India’s last “unapproachable”
public figure who had the air of a benefactor/patron about her. It was a
combination of her upbringing, personal gravitas, reputation and trimmings of
her official position that gave Gandhi that air. On top of all that it was the
sheer pressure as a woman to keep several steps ahead of her male opponents, competitors,
antagonists and undisguised enemies that lent her a quiet pugnacity.

My only brush with
her with any proximity came when she visited Ahmedabad sometime in the early
1970s. It was more like a blink and you miss it moment. In those days no one of
consequence came to Ahmedabad and it was a good three decades after anyone of
consequence had lived there. I refer, of course, to a certain Mohandas K.
Gandhi. We were told that the prime minister’s motorcade would drive through
Ashram Road, the city’s only decent route then.

As school children we were in front of the crowds lining the
route. After waiting for about an hour in Ahmedabad’s unsparing summer heat, I
could hear a wave of roar gradually approaching my section of the route. After
about half a minute of the escort vehicles passing, I saw a light blue Chevy
Impala convertible with Mrs. Gandhi standing up in the front seat, left hand
holding the windshield and the right waving to the crowd. I remember she was
dressed in a white sari printed with blue or black flowery pattern, her head
covered more as protection against the sun than out of any compulsions of fake public
modesty. She wore what I found out some two decades later were Jackie O goggles.
The motorcade was gone in a few seconds.

Between that image and the one of her body laid on a stack
of sandalwood some decade and a half later unfolded what was easily one of the
world’s most thrilling, infuriating, exciting and brilliant political success
stories. In my reckoning it was the world’s most compelling political success
story. Period.

I will write one more post about her tomorrow. But in the
meantime watch this brief clip, courtesy YouTube, of her interview with a
British journalist in the midst of the war with Pakistan that led to the creation
of Bangladesh. Behind the twitches of her right eye and pursing of lips you can
see righteous indignation.

October 29, 2009

It is strangely ironic that the 25th anniversary of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination on October 31 falls on the watch of India's first Sikh prime minister. This remarkable coincidence is unlikely to be lost on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well as millions of Sikhs. Gandhi, who served as India's prime minister for 15 years in two separate terms, was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984.

Journalists are suckers for such landmarks because they give them a perfect opportunity to reclaim some of their own dwindling relevance and once again assert their own place in history. The Indian media is already coming alive with reminiscences and retrospectives to mark the upcoming anniversary of this staggering murder that fundamentally altered India's polity.

Seen from the perspective of the elaborate security apparatus that today guards leaders around the world, and particularly in South Asia, Gandhi's assassination appears remarkably easy. Beant Singh, one of her two Sikh bodyguards, walked up to her with his .38 revolver and fired three shots into her abdomen. He was followed by the second bodyguard Satwant Singh who fired another 28 bullets giving the 66-year-old Gandhi no chance of survival. That the assassins fired 31 bullets on October 31 was dismissed as a mere coincidence.

Initially, the bodyguards made no attempt to escape. In fact, Beant Singh was reported by Gandhi's faithful assistant R K Dhawan as saying in Punjabi, "We have done what we needed to, now you can do what you have to" as he put his revolver down. But a while later he was shot dead by other guards as he tried to escape. Satwant Singh was hanged five years later.

That Dhawan did not suffer even a cut during the killing inevitably aroused suspicions about his role. His accusers made a specific point about his change of guard duties at the last moment. However, a commission of inquiry exonerated him.

If on November 1, 1984 someone had predicted that India would witness the rise of its first Sikh prime minister barely two decades after Gandhi was killed in the midst of such intense animus among the Sikh community it would have been treated with disdain. And yet adding to the list of ironies, the woman in whose lap, namely Sonia Gandhi, that Indira Gandhi died on way to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, went on to take her political position. Not only that, she appointed the country's first Sikh prime minister.

October 28, 2009

I am curious to see how Washington would reconcile the CIA paying Ahmed Wali Karzai for various services even while it accuses his brother, President Hamid Karzai of corruption and fraud. And now that Dexter Filkins, Mark Mazzetti and James Risen of The New York Times have outed Ahmed Wali how will he survive the internecine viciousness of Afghanistan? And what about the certainty that it will only reinforce the popular perception in Afghanistan that the Karzais are merely lackeys of the West?

The timing of Ahmed Wali outing could not have more damaging for the Obama administration as it struggles to put together an intelligent strategy to deal with Afghanistan. If you ask me (and why would anyone do that?), the only intelligent strategy in Afghanistan is for the world to leave the country to its own destiny as long as that destiny does not spill over. It is time to tell the Afghans and, for that matter, even the Pakistanis: Here are you countries, deal with them.

There is no way the Obama administration can sermonize to President Karzai about corruption and electoral fraud now that we know about how the CIA had its most powerful operative in his brother. One can only speculate with the Afghan president knew what his Ahmed Wali was up to. I think he did but let that continue for any future deal-making.

It is precisely this kind of skullduggery that gives the US the reputation it has acquired in that part of the world. Knowing as little as I do about all the details of what really unfolds behind the scene in such wars, it would be foolish to reach any definite conclusion. However, one can say with a fair degree of certainty that the US engagement in Afghanistan now is as untenable as the Soviet occupation was. Most people don't do occupation very well but the Afghanis are particularly bad at that.

October 27, 2009

The foreign ministers of India, China and Russia met in Bangalore today and issued a joint statement projecting all the right sentiments. However, one particular paragraph stood out for its dichotomy.

"Enhanced engagement among them (the three countries) strengthens their influence on the process of democratization of international relations and development of multipolar world order reflecting the diversity of world cultures and civilizations," the declaration said at the end of the ninth trilateral meeting.

The idea that China and, to some extent, even Russia can actually demand greater "democratization of international relations". While they are at it, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia should use their influence to strengthen the process of democratization in their own countries as well.

The trilateral meeting could have one significant outcome in the context of what is now referred to as the AfPak (Afghanistan-Pakistan) region since all three spoke of restoring stability to the region. The joint statement talked about "a democratic, pluralistic and prosperous Afghanistan", a laudable but unrealistic goal in the current climate. However, India, China and Russia can really bring their obvious geostrategic weight to bear upon the AfPak region even though we all know what happened to the last Russian attempt to seize Afghanistan. We will all do well remember that all three have only fractured credibility there.

From the U.S. stand point the three countries' demand for a multipolar world is of consequence, particular its specific emphasis on reforming the United Nations and changing the governance structure of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Washington has to be mindful of the fact that along with Brazil, Russia, India and China form BRIC which has made its intentions to exercise greater influence on world affairs clear in recent times.

The three Asian countries represent nearly 40 percent of the global population and 20 percent of landmass, which together give them significant gravity.

October 26, 2009

This is what Amitabh
Bachchan has to say in his blog today along with a clipping of a news story by
The Hindu newspaper.

“Ladies and
gentleman of the extended family, remember we wrote and talked about surrogate
mothers and birth. Look what the print media came out with a few days after we
wrote about it. Telepathy, coincidence or is the media following us.. hah ha
ha.. Enjoy”

The notion that the
media is following what his blog reported first is mildly amusing because this
story has been doing the rounds since at least 2006. The Christian Science
Monitor had this story by Anuj Chopra April 3, 2006, well before Bachchan’s
blog began. See the story here.

October 25, 2009

Fifty years after he made it his home, India still remains cagey, albeit respectful, about the Dalai Lama's presence on its soil.

Successive Indian governments since 1959, which means pretty much from the sovereign India's first government under Jawaharlal Nehru, have treated the Dalai Lama with a defensiveness that may have been expedient in the early decades of his exile but it no longer makes sense now.

More often than not New Delhi has appeared consumed with guilt that the man China considers its arch enemy lives in India in complete freedom. In the process it has gone out of its way placate Beijing by drawing boundaries beyond which he ought not to stray.

While it is unquestionable that no country, including the United States, has done more for the Dalai Lama and his Tibetan cause than India, it is equally true that India has also not crafted a smart strategy around his presence in its discourse with China.

The latest example of this confused approach came as recently as today during a news conference by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Hua Hin, Thailand, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit. Asked if he discussed the Dalai Lama with China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, Singh said, "All I can say that I explained to Wen that the Dalai Lama is our honored guest. He is a religious leader. "

In the same breath he also clarified that India does not allow any political activities by the Dalai Lama. This claim is only officially accurate. Unofficially, everything that the Dalai Lama does by its very definition is political because in the Tibetan context spiritual is political.

Even on the crucial question of the Dalai Lama scheduled visit to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, something that China so strongly objects to, Singh dropped this turkey: "I am not aware of the Dalai Lama's (Arunachal) program. I have explained this position to the Chinese leadership." Really? You, the country's prime minister, are not aware of a visit by China's arch enemy to travel to the most disputed territory?

What makes India's diffidence over the Dalai Lama so frustrating is that it negates New Delhi's singular contribution in helping the Dalai Lama keep the Tibetan cause alive for so long.

October 24, 2009

The leaders of India and China met today in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin in the midst of their most intense acrimonious exchange in recent years. Surprisingly, China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chose not raise the cause of the current slide in bilateral relations.

Wen and Singh avoided the questions of Arunachal Pradesh, the northeastern Indian state that both the countries claim sovereignty over, and an upcoming visit there by the Dalai Lama. From the Chinese perspective there could have been a greater affront by India than not just asserting its control over Arunachal Pradesh but compound it by encouraging its arch foe the Dalai Lama to visit there. It is a clear case of rubbing salt in China's wounds as far as Beijing is concerned.

From India's perspective the question of Arunachal Pradesh's sovereignty is long settled and a visit to a Buddhist monastery in Tawang is a routine event which China should have no problem with. If only the question of territorial control were that simple!

I am not surprised that Wen and Singh chose not to let the overall bilateral relations be affected by this one issue. What I am surprised about is that they chose to disregard it altogether. We do not know if the two in fact discussed it but decided to keep their discussion out of any public statement. They both recognize how sensitive border disputes can be in that part of the world where troops from both sides of the border are often practically in each other's boots.

The Wen-Singh meeting came in the shadows of a strong statement by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu's, recently chastising the Indian prime minister for visiting Arunachal Pradesh to address an election rally on October 3. The statement crossed the line of sovereign niceties. "China is strongly dissatisfied with the visit to the disputed region by the Indian leader disregarding China's serious concerns," the statement said without referring to Singh. But it was clear whom the spokesman had in mind.

"We demand the Indian side address China's serious concerns and not trigger disturbance in the disputed region so as to facilitate the healthy development of China-India relations," Ma said.

While Beijing has been unsparing in its language when it comes to indicting the Dalai Lama it had generally refrained from directly referring to a specific Indian figure. The fact that the spokesman chose to attack Singh specifically ought to have upset the Indian government. Going by the meeting in Hua Hin both sides decided to cool down the rhetoric.

Singh told Wen, "I am excited to see you." Wen responded by congratulating Singh on his reelection. The two had last met in New York in September, 2008, in the final months of Singh's first term as prime minister.

On balance it is a good thing that Wen and Singh found it wiser to arrest the slide in bilateral relations at a time when either can barely afford it.

October 23, 2009

For someone who does not think that Mira Nair is a filmmaker, I seem to have seen practically her entire body of what her admirers regard as her most consequential work. I have seen 'Salaam Bombay', 'Mississippi Masala', 'Monsoon Wedding' and 'The Namesake'. Of the four 'Salaam Bombay' was the only one I saw not knowing what to expect since it was her first film. The other three I went to see only to reinforce my raging bias against her and to affirm that she indeed has no sense of cinema.

In my judgment, such as it is, 'Monsoon Wedding' remains her best work on a relative scale. That has to do with the fact that she understands the milieu depicted in the movie instinctively. The movie to her was like going home on a vacation after a long stay away from the conviviality that joint families in India so misleadingly convey. As for 'Salaam Bombay' she pulled it off in the fresh flush of creativity.

Generally when I see Mira Nair's movies, I get the sense that she is doing her best to ignore the presence of an expensive camera in the vicinity. It is as if she is on a family outing where someone has accidently brought a camera. By the way, this is equally true of Gurinder Chaddha, who is even less of a filmmaker than Mira Nair if that is possible. If Nair was any less talented she would be Chaddha.

I am writing about Nair because her latest movie 'Amelia' is being released today. It is highly unlikely that I will see the movie in theater or on DVD. But I must admit that I have been reading its reviews this morning in search of some vicarious pleasure. I did not have to look too far. Here is what Manohla Dargis writes in The New York Times:

"Alas, excesses of any pleasurable kind are absent from this exasperatingly dull production. The director Mira Nair, whose only qualification appears to be that she's a woman who has made others films about and with women ('Mississippi Masala', 'Vanity Fair'), keeps a tidy screen — it's all very neat and carefully scrubbed. I don't recall a single dented automobile or a fissure of real feeling etched into a face. Bathed in golden light, Amelia and G. P. are as pretty as a framed picture and as inert."

It is to Nair's credit that she has convinced those who matter in Hollywood to back her craft. It is also to her credit (and I say this with great sincerity) she has produced a body of work. Just as one cannot claim to be an author with a couple of books, one cannot claim to be a filmmaker with a couple of films. Unless you have written at least ten books or made at least five films you are neither an author nor a filmmaker. IMBD lists nearly 20 movies/shorts/TV films to her credit. That is truly commendable because it is very hard to persist in any creative endeavor that is team-based. The problem is that even after so much it is hard for me to see her as a filmmaker.

A note to self: Coming from someone who is read by less than 30 people a day and who has just written two books where do I get the temerity to critically assess Mira Nair? If it is any consolation I do not call myself an author. I am a journalist who happens to have written two averagely successful books which are already forgotten. And yes, I have no special qualifications --none whatsoever-- to judge anyone else's work. Having an opinion on everything is not a skill. It is just presumptuousness.